


another love letter you'll never read

by carol_danvers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes-centric, Epistolary, Gay Bucky Barnes, Gay Pride, Internalized Homophobia, Letters, Love Confessions, Love Letters, M/M, Museums, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pride, pride month, the metropolitan museum of art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-19 23:30:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19365886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carol_danvers/pseuds/carol_danvers
Summary: For Pride Month 2019, The Met has put together a collection celebrating the LBGTQ+ community in the first half of the 20th century.AKA Bucky writes Steve letters he never sends, and somehow they turn up in a museum a hundred years later. Also everything post-Winter Soldier never happened because I say so.





	1. Love Before the Revolution: An Exhibit

**The Metropolitan Museum of Art**  
Love Before the Revolution:  
letters, photos, and art depicting LGBTQ+ pride before Stonewall

_Exhibition Overview:_

To mark Pride in 2019, the Met is celebrating the lives of LGBTQ+ people in a time before the pride movement as we know it existed. Through the more than 250 paintings, photos, essays, and letters, this exhibit explores life in the 1920s through 1960s for the LGBTQ+ community. Letters from “B” to “S” provide a framework for the internalized homophobia many gay men experienced, while the photography of Diane Arbus offers an inside view of individuals outside of mainstream society. 

_Letters from B to S:_

Graciously donated by a Brooklyn-based collector, these letters are authentic love letters from a man, B, to his friend, S. While practically nothing is known about the two men in the letters, they can be dated to around 1935 (first letter) to about 1945 (final letter). The letters depict heart wrenching romantic feelings, though it is unknown if they were reciprocated-- there are no letters from S.

According to the collector, the letters were passed between several different shops before they were given to the Met. Originally, they were found forgotten in an apartment in Brooklyn. B and S died in World War II, leaving three of these letters hidden in a false bottom of a dresser for the next owner to find, and pass on to a collector. 

The fourth letter is almost certainly a companion to the first three, however it was donated later to the Met by an anonymous donor after realizing that his letter, a family artifact, was by the same author.

“B would have been happy to know his words were to be in an exhibit celebrating his love,” the donor said, “so many years after thinking it was wrong.”

In the final letter, B asks S to read his hidden letters. According to the anonymous donor, S never received this final one, having already gone to war.


	2. The First Letter

S, 

We’ve never kept secrets from each other. We know each other too well to even try, I guess. I remember when you were thirteen and had that crush on my baby sister, and you tried so hard to hide it, but it took me maybe two days to figure it out. You turned bright red, when I confronted you, and you tried to deny it, but I knew.

That’s when I decided not to keep secrets from you. I figured telling you things would be better than you accusing me of them. Does that make sense? Maybe not. I just don’t like keeping secrets. You know me better than I know myself, and if I have to hide things from you, it’s like no one at all in the world knows me. 

I’ve trusted you with every piece of myself, even the ugly and angry parts that I hide from everyone else. You know everything. Except, obviously, this. But I don’t even trust myself with this part. I’ve been trying to burn it off for years, get rid of it, hide all these thoughts from the world.

But I’ve never been good at keeping secrets. My mother always knew I had skipped school before I had even done it. Teachers knew I cheated on tests before I turned mine in. I dunno why. I’ve just got one of those faces, I guess. I’ve got a guilty face, and you’ve got the face of a troublemaker. We’re a weird fucking pair. 

We’re a weird pair in more than just that, though. People always think you’re the passive one, when they first glance at you. I’m the boxer and you’re the artist, but fuck knows you care more for fighting than I do. Always out there beating up men who take advantage of girls, punching the men who catcall them. I’d rather turn a blind eye, but you make me -- you make me want to be good. Want to fight for justice. People think you’re the peaceful one, because you’re small, but you’ve always been the one ready to fight for justice. 

Anyways, this is the only secret I’ve managed to keep. 

It’s a good thing too, because I think you’d hate me if you found out. 

No, that’s not true. Even as I’m writing it down, I’m realizing that’s probably not true. I just said it, that you always want to fight for justice, for the good things in the world. You’ve always fought for the little guy, the one that everyone else wants to step on or leave behind. You’ve always stood up for everyone’s civil rights, the black men and women and the Irish and all of them. I guess that means you would fight for me too, if you knew. 

That makes it a bit easier, to know that you wouldn’t hate me point blank. 

But of course there’s that little asterisk, the little provision at the end of that secret. Like, yeah, there’s this, and that’s probably maybe okay, but then there’s this other thing, that’s probably not okay. 

God, this is such a waste of paper. Could be using this for something actually important. I got taxes to pay and nowhere to put my scratch work when I do the math. You got drawings to do. I’d rather you be drawing than me be writing down a bunch of nothing. 

I just don’t know how else to say it. I definitely can’t tell it to your face. The look you would give me, with those eyes, yeah, no, that -- that would kill me. That would be what finally did me in, after all these goddamn years. It wouldn’t have been when scarlet fever killed a quarter of the kids in Brooklyn. It wouldn’t have been when that man I caught cheating at poker tried to run me across the city for his dirty money. It wouldn’t have even been last winter when we didn’t have enough money for food or heat or water or anything. 

Hell. What’s gonna kill me is when you read this letter, when you read it and then you look at me and you try to smile and pretend it’s okay, but your smile doesn’t reach your eyes because it’s not okay. It’ll be one of those smiles of pity, or embarrassment, or anger. Shame, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t really want to think about it. It hurts, just to imagine. 

I don’t want you to be embarrassed of me, or ashamed. I don’t want you to pity me and my stupid, broken, perverted brain. I don’t want you to hate me. But here I am, a damn idiot, writing this stupid letter like it could end well in any world. 

It can’t, and I know that. I dunno why I’m writing it. Maybe it’ll feel good. Like a weight off my shoulders. It’s supposed to. That’s why girls keep diaries, my sister says. Writing out feelings feels good, or something. 

I don’t know if it’s working, though. I feel sick. There’s this thick feeling in my throat and my hand is shaking. Sorry about my handwriting. I think if I write the truth down then it’ll be real, and I don’t want that. I don’t want all of this to be true. I’ve spent so many years pushing it out of sight. 

It is, though, and I don’t think I can lie any longer. Mary Edwards, you know that girl that I went dancing with on Sunday, yeah, she told me I looked hung up on someone and I shouldn’t go around breaking everyone else’s heart. 

Maybe she was onto something. 

I’ve been trying to pretend it’s nothing, and I’m making shit up, you know, like sometimes I do. But the idea wormed its way into my brain, and it stuck there, and I don’t think I’m ever gonna be able to get it out. It’s just there and it’s fucking painful. 

It’s been sitting there for five years now, ever since you got a stupid fever and you wore my shirt because you threw up on your only clean one and you looked --

I can’t even write it down. It would be pathetic if it didn’t hurt so much. 

Maybe it still is pathetic. You know? The way I kinda watch you smile while you draw? Did you know your tongue sticks out to the side when you concentrate? And you scrunch up your eyebrows? I love watching you draw, you’re so fucking --

And when you listen to the radio, you get all angry when it’s a politician, and I remember how long you ranted about regretting your vote for Hoover, how angry you were. And when it’s music, you smile at me from across the room, and I want to dance with you, like I did with Mary, and you wouldn’t say my heart wasn’t in it. 

This is a horrible letter, I’m sorry. It was supposed to be short. It was supposed to be, hey. This is it, this is the secret. The big one. The one so secret that sometimes I tell myself that it doesn’t exist. The one that’s been at the forefront of my mind lately, that you keep asking about, about what’s got me so distracted. 

I dunno. I don’t think I can say it. Probably won’t ever. This didn’t help at all. It was a shitty idea. If you ever read this, there better be a good reason you’re going through the false bottom of my sock drawer. Punk. 

B


	3. The Second Letter

S, 

I’m drunk and I’d rather write all this bullshit in a letter than tell it to your face. I don’t know where you are. I think you’re at work or something. I’m at home. I wish I wasn’t alone. I wish you were here. I wish you were always with me, you know? Like sometimes when you go out drinking with your other friends, I miss you like it’s an ache in my lungs and I can’t breathe right because I’m thinking of you hooking up with a girl. 

You say that you don’t want to do that, but it’s just because you think no girl is gonna like you, but all those girls are stupid and they don’t know what they’re missing out on. They reject you when you ask to dance as if I wouldn’t kill for a dance with you. They leave your dates early as if I wouldn’t drop everything to go on one date with you. They don’t know what they’re missing-- your eyes and jokes and smiles and drawings and I could go on for years listing all the things I want to do with you. 

I set us up on double dates all the time, because it’s the only time I can take you out on a date without you thinking I’m gross. It’s the only time I can pretend you’re my fella and I’m taking care of you. 

Girls hate going out on double dates with us, and I know you think it’s because they don’t like you, but that’s not true. Remember when we took out the Samuels girls to Coney Island? They were telling me after that it’s not you they objected to, Clara liked you, it’s that I paid more attention to winning you a fucking stuffed bear than I did either of them all night (I won that bear, though, and you smiled so loud that it was worth it). 

I’ve never said it aloud before, and I’ve never written it down, and I’m so drunk, and if anyone finds this, I’m fucked. But it doesn’t seem so scary after a few shots of vodka. Everything’s a bit fuzzy and I think the president is talking on the radio but I can’t hear all that well, and maybe I just don’t care. 

I want you to come home to me, after a long day at work. I want you to hug me and I want you to smile and I want to be able to smile back without hiding everything else I feel. 

I’m so in love with you. So, so in love. With your smile and your eyes and your laugh and the way you draw and the way you get so angry about injustice and the way you’re always getting into fights and the way you brush your hand over my arm and the way you say my name, like it’s something beautiful. 

And I hate that we’re both men, because God knows if one of us were a dame, I’d have snatched you up ages ago. We could be married, and maybe it would have been soon enough that your mom would have been able to come to the wedding. You’d have liked that, and I think I would have too. She was a good woman, and I think she wouldn’t have minded all that much if you loved me. 

God, I want to marry you. I want to tell you I love you and I want you to say it back. I want to call you baby and I want to kiss you. I want it more than anything else in the world. I want to forget that we’re both men and forget that the world hates people like me and forget how afraid I am, I want to love you with everything in me, I want to be allowed to. 

I think I could live in one of them Hoovervilles or I could be out of work more than not or I could be starving, and it would all be okay if I got to hear you say you love me. Like it’s a fucking vindication. 

God, I hope you never read this. I should destroy it.

But it feels so good to say. It’s just words on a page. Maybe it’s not so scary after all. It’s just me being head over fucking heels for you. It’s just love. 

I’ve tried, but I can’t get over you, and I almost don’t want to. I think I just want to love you forever and I can bear sitting in silence, I think. As long as I get to stay near you. As long as you don’t leave me. 

Realistically, I know that even writing this down is dangerous. That if anyone finds it, I could lose everything. 

But if we’re talking about desperate hypotheticals, I like to believe that there will one day be a world where I can risk it all. Where I can tell you I love you, and I won’t be afraid you’ll kick me out. Where I can love and love and love and it will be safe. I like to believe that you love me back, and one day, one of us will be brave enough to say it. 

B


	4. The Third Letter

S, 

I’m shipping out tomorrow. I haven’t written a letter since the last one, because that one was such a chemical disaster. But I’m shipping out tomorrow and God knows if I’m ever going to see you again. 

I know that we’re fighting for a good reason. The Nazis are fucking horrific. I know what they’re doing, and I want to stop them with everything I have. 

But I’m so scared. I’m scared I’m going to die and I’m scared the Nazis are going to win and I’m scared there’s going to be nothing left for me if I ever return home. I don’t want to leave you, but I’m pretty sure you’d hate me if I tried to stay while everyone else is doing their duty. 

I’m gonna go, and I’m not gonna complain about it, because it’s the right thing to do. But I’m gonna miss home. 

I was talking to one of the drill sergeants at boot camp-- he’s a nice enough guy, and he was telling me about what it’s like on the front. He was saying that the thing he missed most was good food, the kind that his wife made. He said that he really loved lasagna. He hadn’t realized how much he loved his wife’s lasagna until he didn’t have it anymore, and he hadn’t realized how much he loved her. 

I’m not there yet, but I already know what I’m going to miss most. 

It’s going to be you. You and your stupid blue eyes and your smile and your laugh and your fingers. The drawings that are just scattered around the apartment, because you can’t keep your stuff in one place for the life of you. Your clothes, which are never in the fucking drawers. It used to drive me crazy, but I’m gonna be surrounded by military men who keep their stuff folded in trunks. I might go crazy with missing you if I don’t trip over your shoes every morning. 

God, I hate this. I’m shipping out and leaving you and I never said all of the things I should have. I could die over there. I know you wanted to be all optimistic or whatever you said when I got my draft notice, but so many men have died already, and who am I to think I have any better of a chance than them? They loved people too. 

I don’t know if that makes sense. I don’t know anything anymore. I just know that I’m not gonna be near you and I never told you that I loved you. I said it like friends do, like how you say it to me, and like how my mother says it to you. I never said it how I truly meant it. I never got to hold your hand or kiss you. I never got to run my hands through your hair or trace your spine with my lips. I never got to love you, not like I wanted to. 

I wonder, sometimes, about what it would be like, in a world where we could be together. If maybe the law was changed and we could hold hands and walk down the street. If maybe I could tell all the girls who ask to dance that I’m taken, that I’ve got a fella waiting for me at home. If maybe I could tell the guys down at the docks about the man I’m head over heels for, about how he’s an artist and he’s whip smart and he’s handsome as sin. 

That’d be a beautiful world, I think. 

But it’s not this one. This one has war and pink triangles and jail cells made just for queers caught with their pants down. I’m gonna go to war and I’m gonna fight and I’m never gonna say any of this to you because that might ruin me. But, God, I’m so scared, and I’m gonna miss you so much. 

I know that you don’t feel the same way I do, but I do hope you’re gonna miss me too. I hope I meant that much to you, at least. I’m gonna do my best to send you letters, and you better write me back. I’m gonna need a little comfort and a little hope while I’m marching across Europe. You’ve always been the most comforting thing in my life. I wish you could ship me over a bit of your smile. 

I shouldn’t have written this down. You’re not gonna read it unless I’m dead and you’re cleaning out my stuff. I don’t want to ruin your memory of me. Or maybe you won’t ever find this letter, or the other ones. Maybe you’ll never know. I don’t know which is worse-- you knowing, or you never finding out. 

If you do read this, I’m dead, and I want you to know that I loved you. I loved you with all of my heart and soul, and I hope that I was loved too, even if it wasn’t the same way. I hope that I could make you happy, with what time we had. You always made me happy. 

Keep my jacket, okay? The one without the holes in it. It might be a bit big, but it’s warm and soft. If you’re reading this, I’m dead, and I want to go to hell knowing that you’re not gonna be cold in the winter. So keep the jacket.

B


	5. The Fourth Letter

S,

I’m not allowed to say much. I just wanted to let you know that I’m alive. Anything else worth saying is going to get censored. 

There are good men here. One of them shares his cigarettes with me. A bunch of them snore. I don’t get much sleep, and I’m tired all the time. There’s nothing quite like the threat of death to keep you awake at night. 

I saw another soldier die today. He was eighteen. A kid. Couldn’t even grow a beard yet. He stepped on a landmine and blew up. Blood and shit and dirt and skin were everywhere. I can’t get his face out of my head, the fear in his eyes when the click came and he realized what had happened. He didn’t scream. Just waved frantically and got us all out of the way before it went off. There was no stopping it. We just had to scatter and hope we didn’t die with him. 

Sometimes I wonder how all the other men do it, how they manage to sleep at night without losing their heads in the nightmares. Or maybe I’m just the only one getting this fucked over. I keep having nightmares about guns and bombs and landmines, and I dream about you blowing to pieces or bleeding out in my arms. I wake up sweaty and shaking. I think the doctors call it shell shock. Doesn’t matter though. I’ll keep on. I don’t really have a choice. 

I keep thinking about what will happen if the Nazis make it back to New York. What they’ll do to Mrs. Abelman and her kids from two floors down. What they’ll do to Annie Steinback who I went dancing with one time. What they’ll do to the rabi in the temple a few streets down from my mother’s church. What they’ll do to you. 

I know you’re not disabled like some other people are, but Hitler might put you through his fucking “cleansing program” anyways and, God, I will kill every fucking Nazi if it means protecting you. 

I hate war. I hate hurting people. You used to say that I’m a lover and not a fighter. I think this war has broken me-- I don’t know how to love the good things in this world anymore, I just know how to fight the bad ones. 

I’ve arranged for my pension to be sent to you, so make sure that you get it. And make sure that you’re using that money on important stuff, instead of just giving it away to every homeless person on the street. I know that they deserve a good life too and all that shit you told me all the times when you came home without a coat, but I need to know that you’re okay. I need to know that you’re eating and sleeping and warm. 

My family will be happy to feed you if you’re out of work, you know that, so take advantage of my mom’s cooking. I miss her food. She made some good fucking dinners. I used to bring her flowers when we went over for Sunday lunches-- if you visit her, can you bring her some? She likes pink roses. 

I don’t think that I’m going to live through this. I’m going to die, I think, on one of these battlefields, where my body is just gonna decay in a mass grave. I won’t be buried next to my family. I think that’s the part that hurts the most. When my body becomes the earth, it won’t be with yours. 

Is that a morbid thought? I don’t know. I’m sorry. I want to come home, but I don’t think I will. People keep dying, and there’s nothing I can do to save them. Death is a rich man. 

There’s a false bottom to my sock drawer. There are letters in there. They’re for you. 

B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick clarification: this letter was actually sent to steve, but steve had gotten the serum and run off by this point, so he never received it. since no one was there to receive it, it was given to bucky's family, who kept it safe & secret until now. the next (last) chapter won't be a letter, but will be the two at the museum exhibit.


	6. Love After the Revolution

There are years upon years of memories that Bucky didn’t have lingering in his head anymore. There were legions of inside jokes that Bucky couldn’t laugh at anymore, thousands of moments that Bucky hadn’t been able to hold on to. Steve reminds him of some of them, and he makes new memories, but Bucky can tell that there are things that Steve doesn’t say. 

Sometimes he has flashbacks-- sometimes he screams at nothing and sometimes he cries when Steve tries to touch him, but sometimes there are good things too. 

Their apartment was warm in the summer. The sunlight filtered through the dust covered window panes, reaching out with orange fingers to the floorboards and his bare arms. One of the windows opened up to the fire escape, and he used to climb out and sit there to smoke. Steve used to draw him there all the time, thousands of charcoal drawings of Bucky’s figure slouched over the railing. 

Steve used to sit on the backs of chairs instead of in the seat. It drove Bucky crazy because he always thought that Steve would lean over too far and fall off, cracking his head open. His worst fear had been Steve getting hurt. 

They shared a bedroom because they couldn’t afford an apartment with two. They had two twin beds, pushed up against either wall, but in the winter, Steve pulled Bucky into his to keep warm. Steve always used to be so cold, fingers nearly turning blue in the dead of winter. 

He used to stay awake, watching Steve as he slept-- running a finger down Steve’s arm, tracing lines between the light freckles and running circles over his wrists. Bucky can still remember the ache of it, wanting to kiss Steve awake, wanting to run his lips over Steve’s shoulders. He can still remember being in love. 

He also remembers it being illegal, being wrong. He remembers the gay raids and the queers by the docks not always making it home. So he won’t say it, especially not to Steve, but -- it’s more than a memory, he thinks. That love is something still beating in him, something still running in his blood and in his veins. It’s something still living in his heartbeat, everytime he glances over at Steve. He doesn’t think it will ever go away. 

He spends a lot of time watching Steve, now. He likes watching Steve fight-- watching the muscles in his back tense and the flick of his wrist as he throws the shield and the sweat at his hairline. He likes watching Steve write his reports-- the bored glances he’ll send Bucky every now and then and the smile given just to him. He likes watching Steve draw-- watching the smudge of pencil on his palm and his tongue at the corner of his mouth and his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. 

“Creep,” Steve says one day, glancing up from his drawing. “How long are you just going to sit there watching me?” 

Bucky gives him a rare smile from where he sits at the kitchen island. He doesn’t smile a lot anymore, too focused on all the dangers of this new world, all of the people trying to hurt one or both of them. Steve is lying on the couch, drawing at one end and legs at the other, not caring about those dangers. 

“I’m looking out the window,” Bucky lies. 

“Sure you are,” Steve says, smiling. Steve smiles a lot, Bucky thinks, but it’s a beautiful smile, and so he’s not going to complain. “Hey, there’s an exhibit at the Met that I wanted to see, do you want to come with me?” 

Bucky shrugs a yes, moving his eyes over to the window, as if Steve doesn’t know that he’s watching. Steve has been trying to get him to go outside more often, visiting public places and not having breakdowns over the possibility that someone will try to take him back to Hydra. He almost likes the 21st century, when it isn’t trying to kill him. 

Steve gave him fingerless gloves -- fuzzy ones with skeleton bones on the outsides -- for his birthday, the first one after Hydra. They were ridiculous and completely impractical and incredibly soft and Bucky loved them. Steve pulls them on his hands before they go out to the museum, a reminder that impractical soft things are perfect for every occasion these days. 

They walk or run everywhere, and the gloves keep him warm on the long walk to the museum. Steve talks mindlessly as they move, weaving their way through the crowds of other pedestrians. Bucky used to be the talkative one, he’s pretty sure, but he likes listening to Steve talk more than anything else, now. 

“It’s called Love Before the Revolution,” Steve said, reading off of a pamphlet he had gotten when they finally made it to the Met. He glanced at Bucky, biting his lip. “It’s about LGBTQ+ pride before Stonewall.” 

Bucky keeps pace, content to walk next to Steve, whatever exhibit they were seeing. There weren’t assassins at museums. He had spent the first hour they were there scanning the place. “I don’t know what those things are.” 

“Stonewall was a series of riots at Stonewall Inn against a police raid,” Steve says carefully. “It was in the late sixties, I think. Police raided a bar, looking to arrest and detain gay and trans people, and they protested. People consider it the start of the gay and trans liberation movement.” 

Bucky swallows. “Liberation movement? For gay people?” 

“Yeah.” Steve looks straight ahead, but his fingers are digging creases into the pamphlet. “That okay?” 

“What do -- what do you -- ” Bucky stammers out, choking on the words. He has a secret that he’s been holding for a century, and Steve is just -- talking about it, like it’s nothing. There’s a pride movement and it isn’t even a secret, and Steve doesn’t mind. “What do you think?” 

“It’s fucking great,” Steve says, voice hard. There’s no room for argument, and Bucky almost loves it.

“It’s fucking great,” Bucky repeats, and he blushes. 

They make their way towards the exhibit, Steve trailing his hand along the marble railings. Bucky almost smiles at him as he takes in the paintings on the walls, a look of wonder vaguely passing over his lips. 

Steve leads him to the exhibit, Bucky with one hand on the hollow of his back, keeping Steve within arm’s reach at all times. They distance themselves slowly-- Steve combs through the exhibit for a specific section, while Bucky takes his time wandering through all the different glass cases. 

The exhibit is crowded, Bucky notices, with young kids bumping into the adults’ legs every now and then, pulling their parents from painting to painting. It was busier than the rest of the museum was, and half of the people had colorful pins on their bags. There are dozens of people crowded into this one area, celebrating a pride Bucky had never known. 

He taps a teenager on the shoulder, not meeting his eyes, but instead staring at the pink triangle he has pinned to a camo jacket. 

He nods towards the pin. “You’re -- why’re you wearing that? That’s -- dangerous.” 

“The pin?” Bucky nods, and the boy smiles at him. “It’s not dangerous anymore. It’s a symbol for gay pride. Like Hitler used the pink triangle to, like, mark and shame gay people, but some people online are trying to reclaim it. Like they are with the word ‘queer.’” 

“Reclaim it?” Bucky asks, swallowing. He can remember averting his eyes from the other men in the army, trying to keep his perversions secreted away, he can remember punching people for calling him queer, he can remember people wanting to save the Jews but leave the fags. He can’t remember any kind of pride associated with that pink triangle. 

The boy smiles again. Firm. “Yeah, to kind of take the power back from those oppressors from so long ago. Make it something strong instead of an insult. They have some pamphlets about it over there,” he says, pointing to the other end of the room. 

“Thank you,” Bucky says quietly, watching the boy turn around. He makes for another boy jotting down notes about a different painting, and kisses the back of his neck, and Bucky -- it sinks in, now. That this is okay. This brave new world is reclaiming all the horror that came with being -- the way he is. These kids are making a new world, where pink triangles and rainbow flags and the word queer are all prideful instead of shameful. 

He needs to find Steve. 

Bucky weaves his way through the crowd, his heart a metronome. “Steve,” he says, breathless, as soon as he reaches his friend. 

Steve turns, his eyes wrinkled in confusion. “You okay?” 

“I’m good,” Bucky tells him honestly. “I’m really good.” 

Steve cracks into a smile. “I’m glad, Buck. Come on, I want to show you something. They have some stuff from the 30s, it’s kind of fun to look at.” 

Bucky nods, letting Steve take his hand and lead him towards a different section. Steve doesn’t let go of his hand as they come to a stop in front of a small frame of pictures. 

“They’re photo booth pictures,” Steve says, smiling. “We used to call them Photomatons. They were one of the only safe places for gay people to take photos with their partners, because they could be developed on their own.” 

Bucky squeezes Steve’s hand. “The world has changed so much.” 

“For the better,” Steve says. He drops Bucky’s hand, stepping back. He takes his phone out, opening up the notes app. He uses that app a lot, to take notes on things he likes about this new century, as if sometimes he needs reminders that his sacrifices were worth it. 

Bucky steps to the side as Steve types, eyes caught on a glass case. There are framed letters there, with a small sign above them-- “Letters from ‘B’ to ‘S.’” They’re familiar, like an old itch in the back of his head, a song that he almost remembers the tune of but can’t quite place the lyrics, or a smell that reminds him of something from his childhood but that he can’t quite name. 

He reaches a finger up, tapping the glass. He leaves a fingerprint where his finger touched, and someone evil could use that against him, but this is a world where fingerprints are okay and those letters are like names of characters in a book he read once. 

“Steve,” he says quietly, reaching out for him. He doesn’t have to glance up to find Steve standing there, turning over at the sound of Bucky’s voice. “Steve, I think these letters are mine.” 

“What?” 

Bucky pulls Steve over. “Do you -- do you recognize these?” 

Steve frowns, leaning over to get a closer look. “That’s your handwriting, yeah, but I’ve never seen these before. Other people might just have similar writing.”

“Steve,” Bucky says, soft and slow. He has his hands at his temples, as if trying to massage all of the answers out of his brain. “Steve, no, no, I know these are mine. I remember -- I remember writing these.” 

Steve studies him carefully, face unknowable. “What do they say?” 

“They’re love letters,” Bucky says, swallowing down his fear. There’s the boy with the pink triangle behind Steve, laughing with his boyfriend. There’s a girl to his left with a rainbow flag sticking out of a pocket in her backpack. “I think -- Steve, I definitely wrote these, but I don’t -- I don’t know how they’re here.” 

Steve reaches out a hand and then drops it. He glances at the letters, and back at Bucky. “Who were these for? Maybe we can figure out who gave them to the museum.” 

“I think they were for you.” 

Steve stares, and Bucky can’t meet his gaze, so he just looks over at the letters, catching phrases as they pop out from behind the glass. I’ve trusted you with every piece of myself. I kinda watch you smile while you draw. I can pretend you’re my fella and I’m taking care of you. I never told you that I loved you. 

“Bucky,” Steve says. “What’re you saying?” 

“I wrote you -- I wrote you letters,” Bucky murmurs. He’s not sure Steve can hear him, but the heat rising over his cheeks might say everything he needs to. “I wrote you love letters and I hid them in my sock drawer and you weren’t ever supposed to read them and now they’re in a museum.” 

Steve swallows, eyes downcast. He takes Bucky’s hands, moving like time is molasses and space is honey. He runs a finger over the back of the skeleton gloves, lips parted slightly. “You?” 

“I wrote you love letters,” Bucky says again. He watches Steve squeeze his hands, gentle in every movement, like he might snap if he moves too quickly. 

“Do you still -- love -- ”

Bucky opens his mouth to say something, and thinks better of it, and thinks what if Steve hates me, and thinks but this is a brave world, and thinks, fuck it. 

“I still,” he blurts out. 

He can feel Steve tense in his hands, can feel the blood rushing at the tips of his ears. He braces himself for the rejection, or for the laugh, or for the punch that should’ve come decades ago when Bucky first wrote those letters. 

“You still love me?” Steve asks, words slow and careful. Bucky can tell that he’s staring, trying to get Bucky to meet his eyes, but he can’t bring himself to look up. 

“How many times are you gonna make me say it?” Bucky tries to joke. 

Steve drops his hands, moves them to cup Bucky’s cheeks, and Bucky is frozen, but his hands are so warm. He covers Steve’s hand with his own, and Steve -- Steve kisses him. 

He is endlessly soft and Bucky might melt into this moment, this quiet haven in a museum that loudly proclaims this a new world. A new world where love is just that. 

Bucky kisses Steve back with an ache he’s had since he was sixteen. When they part, he can no longer remember what it means to be afraid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!! thank you so so much for reading through to the end! all of your lovely and heartwarming comments have meant the world to me while writing/publishing this. happy pride month (i say the day after it ended) to you guys and to these lovely gay super soldiers. i sincerely hope that you enjoyed this final chapter♡


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